The project

We held a range of pre-consultation meetings with key stakeholders and other experts, and with the Home Office as the sponsoring department for the project. The consultation paper was published on 21 January 2019.

Our consultation paper reviews the Immigration Rules to identify the underlying causes of their complexity, and to develop principles under which they can be redrafted to make them simpler and more accessible.

It makes a number of preliminary proposals to pave the way for the introduction and maintenance of clear, comprehensible and logically organised Rules, and asks whether consultees agree. It also seeks the views of consultees on more open questions.

The paper also includes specimen redrafting of some of the Rules.

It does not consider substantive immigration policy.

Next steps

Our consultation paper is currently open for consultation. When public consultation ends, we will analyse the results of the consultation and deliver recommendations in a final report later in 2019.